Partnership

Partnership. What do you think of when you hear that word? I mean really, what comes to mind?

Is it a marriage? A business relationship? Friendship? Maybe it's partners in a game? Maybe a partner in "crime"?

Does partnership make you think of sharing something equally? Or does one person or group hold more weight than the other?

Have you ever engaged in any kind of partnership? What did it look like? How did it work?

Prior to the last half decade, I didn’t think about that word much. Unless I was thinking of my future husband ;) But now that word is essential to my vocabulary and its one of the biggest things I have been learning about, specifically within the past year.

That word has become so important to me because of my relationship with God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. You see, God has been showing me that he created us to be partners with Him. He never wanted to be the one with all the control as if we are the puppets and he is the one pulling the strings.

He created us so he would have people to share his power with, so he could have real relationship with us and we could work together to bring his love into every corner of this world we live in. After all, what really is relationship if one person is pulling all the strings.

I’m going to make a bold statement here. But it is one I truly believe and have experienced.

I don’t believe God is in control. Now wait! There’s more behind that statement. I believe God has the power to be in control, but I don’t believe he exercises that power very often. I believe he delegates it to us. And I believe he wants to work with us to exert that power for good and not for evil.

I know, that’s crazy. And even more, it might seem irresponsible of God. How could he give power to people who don’t know how to use it or worse, use it for evil? But he wouldn’t be a man of his word if he gave power to some and not all. He has truly given us free will and the purpose of that is to be in true relationship with us. And yes, it costs Him a lot. He watches us use his power in ways it was not meant to be used.

He watches us as his children get hurt and experience death and hardship because of the way his power is used. His name gets dragged through the mud because of things people do in his name. Trust me, I don’t think he rejoices over any of that. I think he mourns with us and is deeply saddened. But the Father I have come to know loves each and every person too much to start pulling the strings and risk the relationship of love he longs for with each of us.

I’ve also come to believe that there is not just one plan for my life that I must follow in order to be in God’s “good graces”. Partnership means that both people are making decisions and bouncing ideas back and forth. Partnership means that both people’s desires get taken into account.

I’ve have been getting the opportunity to put this into practice as I graduated G42 and have been trying to figure out what to do next. I have choices and I get to figure it out with God. And most times, he’s good with whatever I choose. He just wants to do it together.

It’s actually crazy. And very opposite from what I grew up with. So it has taken some time to shift my mindset and actions accordingly. But I’ve been learning a lot.

Which leads to my move to Pennsylvania! As I was continuing to explore and pursue things in Knoxville, I also pursued other opportunities that came up here and there. One of those was PA.

Long story short, the Wendle family lives in State College, PA. Kristen and Ethan are some of my very good friends and they have 4 daughters. I spent a lot of time with them in my last semester of G42 (Ethan is the former director of G42) and we all meshed really well together.

So it was on all of our radars’ to do some more life together at some point in the future. I don’t think any of us thought it would be this soon but they ended up needing some extra help so they asked me to come be their nanny.

After a little bit of back and forth weighing everything involved in the decision, I decided PA was where I wanted to be. So I moved! I have been here for just about 2 weeks and I love it! It is so fun being a part of a family again and getting to help them out. I will also be helping Ethan with some administrative things which is great because I have a lot of skills in that and I love doing those kinds of things.

All this to say God has been giving me very tangible situations to put into practice the things I have been learning with Him.

Once I get more settled here, I plan to start looking into ways I can engage in the things I’m passionate about (one of my goals leaving G42). And I’m here for the long haul! I don’t have a timeline and I kind of like that. I’ve been on timelines for the last 3 years so this is a nice change.

I also wanted to mention that I definitely didn’t come to believe all the things I mentioned in this blog overnight. It has honestly been years of wrestling with Him and wrestling with things I heard growing up. It’s been years of deconstructing my faith and building it back up on Him alone. It’s been all the little experiences I’ve had with Him that have subtly shifted my perspective on who he is and why he created us in the first place.

So if it doesn’t make sense to you or you have questions, please ask those questions! Whether to me or someone else or to God. Asking questions is how we discover more of who God is and in turn more of who we are. It’s a crazy, wild, and beautiful journey that I wouldn’t trade for anything!

Much love to you all!

Rachel